The ingredients for a Winter
Wonderland is lots of ice and snow. On January 25, 2004, Topeka and most
of
Northeast Kansas experienced a twenty-four hour period of rain, freezing drizzle
and then freezing rain. That
combined with temperatures that consistently dropped the following days
preserved the freezing ice on trees and bushes.
Then on February 2, 2004, Central and Northeast Kansas got a blanket of snow
that ranged anywhere from seven and
one half inches to a whopping fourteen inches. February 3, 2004 was clear
blue skies, lots of sunshine and a perfect
day to traverse a portion of the Kansas Flint Hills in Wabaunsee County,
beginning some twenty-five miles West of Topeka.

It's been awhile since this
particular area displayed a significant snow fall, especially in Winter.
On December
4, 1999 there was a heavy snow and we were able to photograph much of this same
area during the afternoon
of December 5th.

Twenty-eight degrees and still
below freezing, these windmills were not moving. On our way to this
location
we went into a slide with our Jeep and narrowly escaped running straight into a
rocky culvert, but fortunately got
it back on the roadway (four-wheel drive will do miracles sometimes) and averted
that mishap.

U.S. Weather Bureau's Doppler
radar off in the distance and at the crest of one of the hills
southwest from our location that we would soon arrive. From that location
we started
off on another route that would show the depth of this snow further into the
hills.